Six months of neglected work that needs to be completed in just fourteen days in order to wear the cap and gown along with the rest of my classmates. Otherwise, I won’t be getting anywhere near it until the same time next year, if then.

With great emphasis on the if.

Clearly if there was ever a time for magick, and manifesting, and trips to the Great Halls of Learning, it’s now. But, while I refuse to rely on my powers, that doesn’t stop me from relying on my friends—including a few people I didn’t even realize were my friends.

So when classmates I’ve barely even spoken to offer to lend me their notes, and when Stacia and Honor (prompted by Miles, but still) offer to help me catch up on all I missed in physics, I’m so shocked by the offer, I say yes. And for someone who’s avoided doing any form of studying or schoolwork for over a year, it’s a little hard to get back into the groove of doing so now.

It’s also impossible to stop myself from just automatically intuiting the contents the second I touch the cover of my huge stack of textbooks. Mind reading I can control, all I have to do is lower my psychic shield or use my quantum remote, but tapping into the universal consciousness of just intuiting things is something I have no control over. So, instead of fighting it, I decide to use it to my advantage to get through a pile of reading assignments that would be pretty much impossible without it. Besides, I still have to write the papers, and I still have to solve all the equations and memorize the formulas, so it’s not like I’m totally cheating. Though, I admit, when it comes to the makeup tests, well, yeah, all the right answers just automatically appear. But then, there’s nothing I can do about that either.

Still, even with the help of my friends along with my psychic powers, it’s a lot to tackle in such a short amount of time. So while I’m busy with schoolwork, Jude and Ava offer to do their part by reading through Roman’s old journals in an attempt to track down all the far-flung immortals—the orphans Damen turned as well as the ones Roman deemed worthy enough to change through the years. While Romy and Rayne pool their twin talents by crafting handmade party invitations they mail out pretty much all over the globe, as Sabine handles my college applications that are so late it looks like I’ll be forced to take a year off. Which is probably for the best since it’s been so long since I even thought about having a normal future, I don’t even know where to start.

Not to mention how I always assumed that wherever I ended up, Damen would be right there beside me.

I always assumed we’d head off together, just the two of us.

I never once considered I might end up going it alone.

But not having seen him since the day I left him standing at the gate, I have to admit it’s a real possibility. He’s avoiding school.

Avoiding me. And while I’m willing to give him the space that he figures he needs—I hope in the end, he’ll decide to come join me.

Despite all the evidence pointing against it—I hope in the end, he’ll make the right choice.

If he doesn’t, I don’t know what I’ll do. And maybe that’s part of the reason I’ve welcomed the overwhelming volume of schoolwork—it’s distracted me from the terrible, unavoidable fact that if Damen chooses against the fruit, I’ll be forced to make an impossible choice.

Choosing between a misguided life as an immortal—where the universe will conspire to keep us apart at every turn—and a life without Damen, which is just too horrible to contemplate.

So in the midst of all the studying, and reading, and exam taking, and essay writing, and getting next to no sleep in order to fit it all in, I finally take a little time out to visit Summerland.

Partly because I’m eager to find Lotus so I can tell her just how much I accomplished, and partly because, well, I’m also eager to visit it while I still can, while it’s just a simple matter of envisioning that shimmering golden veil and stepping through to its other side. I mean, even though I know plenty of mortals who can get there, I have no way of knowing if I’ll still be able to get there once I become mortal again, and so I’m determined to enjoy it while I can.

After spending a few wonderful moments in the vast fragrant field where I land, after a visit to the Great Halls of Learning, where I stand before its ever-changing façade and re-experience the thrill of being admitted inside, after visiting all of Damen’s and my favorite places—the replica of Versailles he once manifested expressly for me, the field full of tulips that surrounds the pavilion he made for my seventeenth birthday—after returning to the place where the grass once turned to mud and where the trees were all barren—the former entrance to the Shadowland—after finding my way to the beautiful pond still blooming with hundreds of the loveliest lotus blossoms—after all that, when I still can’t locate Lotus, I decide to tuck one of Romy and Rayne’s handmade pink-and-black party invitation envelopes under a large rock I’d seen her lean against, in the hope that she’ll find it.

Then I return to the earth plane, bury myself in my studies, and wait.

Wait to hear from Lotus.

Wait for the RSVPs from all the other immortals to come pouring in.

Wait to hear from Misa, Marco, and Rafe.

Wait to see if they’ll let me graduate.

Wait to see which direction my future might take.

The days ticking past with small bits of news trickling in—but not the news that I want.

There is no word from Damen.

Chapter thirty-nine